Recursive directory listing

Directory listing with a difference, supports directory wildcards.

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Lists the files in a directory and its sub directories.

Ok, so there are many functions like this one already on the file exchange, but this one uses a slightly different wildcard naming system that some people may find useful.

For example,

rdir('C:\Program Files\Windows*\**\*.dll');

will find all dll files in the directories starting with 'C:\Program Files\Windows' and all the dll files in the sub directories below them.

One can filter the list based on the file size and date.

Using the function to find files modified sometime today in the windows directory

rdir('C:\Win*\*','datenum>floor(now)');

Include the sub directories.

rdir('C:\Win*\**\*','datenum>floor(now)');

Or you could use it to find all the no zero-byte processed csv data files for the data recorded in April 2008.

rdir('data\test_200804*\csv\*.csv','bytes>0');

this finds files like...
data\test_20080401\csv\08h00.csv
data\test_20080401\csv\16h00.csv
data\test_20080402\csv\08h00.csv
data\test_20080402\csv\16h00.csv

Cite As

Gus Brown (2026). Recursive directory listing (https://ch.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/19550-recursive-directory-listing), MATLAB Central File Exchange. Retrieved .

General Information

MATLAB Release Compatibility

  • Compatible with any release

Platform Compatibility

  • Windows
  • macOS
  • Linux
Version Published Release Notes Action
1.0.0.0